Power Play (Portland Storm Book 16) by Catherine Gayle

Author:Catherine Gayle [Gayle, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Night Shift Publishing
Published: 2017-06-28T18:30:00+00:00

“YOU’RE REALLY NOT mad at me?” I asked Riley, hating how timid and insecure the simple question made me sound. But the truth was, I felt pretty timid and insecure right now. And in my mind, my husband had every reason to be upset, maybe even more reasons than I’d managed to come up with on my own.

The truth was, I always expected Riley and everyone else to be upset with me in some manner or another. Having that sort of outlook on life was second nature to me, as natural as breathing. Maybe it wasn’t healthy, but it was me. I didn’t know any other way of going about my life.

We were curled up in bed, Riley’s strong arms holding me close to him, our skin still naked, flushed, and slightly sweaty following what Riley called a quickie. It’d turned out to be something we’d both needed after the events of the night.

Riley had barricaded Max and Lola downstairs for a bit, blocking the stairwell with two baby gates, one above the other, to keep them from banging down the door so we could have some time alone.

Our solitude wouldn’t last much longer—Max’s whining was loud enough to wake the neighbors if he kept going for any length of time—but this setup did at least allow us some time for intimacy without Max interfering and trying to protect me from Riley. Or so that was what Riley claimed Max might do. He seemed to think that his dog believed he was responsible for taking care of me, for protecting me as well as anyone I tried to protect in return.

Hence the reason Max had been so desperate to get back inside earlier; he’d thought Kiara and I needed him to guard us, even from my own husband’s anger, if it came to that.

I wasn’t so sure about this explanation, but I was willing to concede that I might not be the best judge of the dogs’ actions, considering my innate fear of them. And Riley had known these two dogs an awful lot longer than I had. So maybe he was right. Maybe Max really did think he needed to protect me.

Nevertheless, that very same fear was what had led to the whole fuss in the first place. I might have done a decent job of confronting my fears head on lately, but I hadn’t done anything about ridding myself of them once and for all. If such a thing were even possible. They were still holed up inside me, just waiting for the right trigger to set them free.

Apparently, one of those triggers involved witnessing a small child in danger of being attacked by a dog. Reasonable enough, considering my past, but maybe a bit unreasonable when considering the dogs in question.

I had to find a way to get past that.

I had to find a way to quash the anxious energy that welled up inside me whenever I was around these dogs. Admittedly, my nerves weren’t as bad as they had been at first.

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